General

Check different stages about the impact

Everything starts with the choice of the right raw material. SKFK has moved from using 10 per cent low impact raw materials in its collections to above 90 per cent today. Fibers can be of natural origin (obtained from plants and animals) or man-made (regenerated cellulosic and synthetics). In each category, there are fibers of lower and higher environmental impact. As part of our commitments, we are seeking to use low-impact fibers in 100% of our styles by 2020.For industry standard calculation, we consider materials most widely used on the market in substitution of low impact materials. Assumptions for comparable clothing:

For organic cotton, conventional cotton

For recycled polyester, cotton or wool, their virgin counterpart

For hemp, linen and ramie, conventional cotton

For recycled cotton, conventional cotton

For lyocell and rayon, viscose

Same weight as SKFK clothing

This is the single most polluting step in the making of a garment. Manufacturing includes knitting, weaving, dyeing, fabric treatments, printing and confection. It requires huge amounts of fresh water, energy and chemicals.
Assumptions for comparable clothing:

Transportation:

The lifeblood of the fast fashion industry is, largely, speed to market - meaning that it relies on air shipments to ship products quickly around the world. Air transport is by far the most polluting mode of transportation, emitting 91% more carbon dioxide than road transportation and 98 % more than sea transportation.
SKFK has a sea transport policy, resulting in over 95% of our products being shipped by sea, except prototypes and samples.
For market standard calculation:

We consider air transport for finished products

For previous steps in the supply chain, we considered 200 km by road were travelled for the manufacturing steps of knitting, dyeing, and confection, both for SKFK and industry standard

Packaging

SKFK uses biodegradable polybags made from corn starch. Virgin plastic polybags are considered as the industry standard.
Furthermore, SKFK uses recycled cotton hangtags made from our friends at PSP India, the cleanest alternative to virgin or recycled cardboard, commonly used in the industry.
Over 60% of inbound production carboard boxes are reused in outbound logistics.

YOU can make a difference.
The way you take care of your clothes and dispose of them has a significant impact.
Garment care:
SKFK has low-impact garment care labels and recommendations on all its products since 2018.

We assume SKFK customers wash at 40 degrees versus 60 degrees

We assume SKFK customers air dry their clothes versus using drying machine a

Same use of iron (6 minutes)

It’s not a secret that the global clothing production has doubled over the past 20 years, to an astonishing 85.000 million garments in 2016. Textile waste occupies nearly 5% of landfill space, and all of us tend now to keep that beloved pair of trousers for half as long as we did 15 years ago. In fact, many cheap garments we buy today do not last due to the intentional poor quality and craftsmanship.
Our in-store used garments collection bins and communication campaigns are aimed at raising awareness among our customers about recycling better.
We assume SKFK customers recycle at a higher rate, 25% above market standards.
Impact for end-of-life for climate change (kg CO2 eq) is based on Screening study data for PEFCR T-shirts, in proportion to single garments’ weight.
Impact for a 160g of T-shirt, 10g of plastic bag (PP) and 43g of cardboard.
T-shirt end-of-life 1,87E-01 kg CO2 eq